Untitled article by L’Inconnue

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 29, 1867

THE SUNDAY QUESTION.

By L’Inconnue

A REVIEW OF THE LATE ACTION OF THE METHODISTS—THE AUTHOR'S OPINIONS—HIS REASONS AND HIS IDEAS OF CONSCIENTIOUS RIGHT.

OWATONNA, OCT. 4, 1867.

EDITORS ST. PAUL PRESS: In the WEEKLY PRESS of Sept. 26th, I find the proceedings of the M. E. Church Conference. Among the resolves I find a request for the publication of their proceedings on the Sabbath question in all the St. Paul papers. Again, I find the following language in the report of a committee, composed in part of Revs. D. Cobb, of the Jackson street Church, St. Paul, and Taber Brooks, President of Hamline University: “That never was there greater need of vigilance on the part of the Christian church, to preserve the Christian Sabbath from desecration and threatened extinction, than there is now. Opposition to it—to its sanctity and its obligations—is organized, wide spread, and determined. Our army and navy regulations require an inspection of soldiers and marines on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a divine institution. Its obligations are therefore authoritative. * Resolved, that it is clearly the province of the State, and imperatively its duty to prohibit, by legal enactment, all amusements, occupations, habits and customs on the Sabbath day, that are dangerous to public virtue and morality.”

Now what does this mean? Does it mean that without regard to the honest, moral convictions of others, the M. E. Church is in favor of establishing by force of man's law, what not one of them can find in divine law? And this, too, in a land of liberty. Yes, it does. When Methodism was started in England—a land of religious oppression—they met the enactments of Parliament prohibiting them. Have they arrived, too, at the height of power that leads to intolerance?

Let us review. They ask a hearing through the press; let a mass of those who dissent from them be heard also. They set out with the avowal that others oppose the sanctity of the “Christian Sabbath.” This means Sunday. Now I ask Messrs. Cobb and Brooks to show one word in Holy Writ, establishing the first day of the week as Sabbath. In one of their resolves they quote a part of the fourth commandment, and omit the rest, which condemns their Sunday Sabbath. Now, let us be candid. I have always kept, and always shall, the Sunday Sabbath, as a day of rest. But I deny its sanctity; and ask these Reverend gentlemen to make it appear. I am aware that long ages have elapsed since the heathen Sunday was, by man's law, made the Christian Sabbath, but that proves nothing.

We believe in republican governments and freedom of religion; yet monarchy and intolerance are older than all these ideas. A large mass of good men believe in the Jewish law, which ordained the seventh day as the Sabbath. Shall our State enact a law, sending American citizens to jail, because they keep the fourth commandment, instead of the edict of Constantine? We have men who would suffer martyrdom rather than obey such a law, and they, in Christianity, are as blameless as any in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Are these men prepared for the results of such a law?

Rev. Mr. Ingraham, of Goodhue county, told me he believed the words, “Six days shalt thou labor,” were as binding as the words, “but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” Will these men enact a law, that shall send an officer on the seventh day of the week, and arrest Mr. Ingraham in his pulpit, because he worked the Sunday before? And suppose he should refuse to pay the fine laid, commit him to jail with horse thieves, vagrants, murderers, and drinking brawlers!

I know that the mass of people, who at first sight approved these resolves, would never submit to see a law so enforced. Yet the drunken brawler has as much right to enforce such a law in its letter, as you have to lock him up. Never make a law for buncombe. Enforce all law.

Again; there are many that believe as I do, that all of the Jewish law was abolished, even the law regarding the Sabbath. “Blotting out the hand writing of ordinances that were against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Let no man, therefore, judge you, in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.” (In the original, “or of the Sabbaths.”) Col. ii, 14, 16. Again, a man may be confined all the week at a desk, attending to his daily labor. Now suppose the Sabbath divine; even then he must only use it as a day of rest. Could it be a rest to him to be confined either in his own house, or the church. Would it not rather be keeping it as a rest to ramble over the fields and groves, inhaling new vigor for to-morrow's confinement? Not but what I believe in church-going and Christianity. But man-made laws never drove Christianity where the heart was stubborn and free.

Let the time-honored custom of keeping Sunday as a day of rest, be perpetuated. Let us have a day on which to hold meetings, and feel at ease from our daily toil. Let us hope it may, for convenience, be as universal as may be. But do not let us follow the lead of almost every land, and as soon as we obtain numbers sufficient, try to compel others, in religious matters, to do and think as we do by penal law. Let any man show me a law with penalties enacted by man, in the interest of a religion or sect, and I will show where men attempted, in every instance, to perpetuate an error.

The simple fact is, the Constitution of the United States, and of our own State, forbid such laws. They clearly interfere with the rights of conscience, and are mere nullities, besides being an insult to free thought.

Let no one think that the great mass, even of those who think as I do, would be willing to have all our laws that forbid disturbances of religious meeting by boisterous and unbecoming language or actions; that forbid evil practices on Sunday, that are calculated to disturb the quiet church-goers, repealed. No! rather let them be extended to every day of the week; as the man who believes in a seventh-day Sabbath, may have the same protection to his sacred day, as others. But whatever is lawful on Monday, is lawful on Sunday.

The Chinaman may, by our constitution, set up a temple to Buddha or Shiva, everywhere in our land, and on any day he pleases, be undisturbed in worshiping therein. It is the light of Christianity, not the force of civil law, that makes us the steady, church-going people we are. And our freedom from Popery, and all intolerance, is the effect of a free conscience, unbound by either a law-made priesthood or a carnal enactment. Every law in aid of religious opinions, as to give them force over dissenters, is a breach of that great charter of liberty, made by our forefathers, in which we are guaranteed the right to do and think in religious matters as we please. Never unite, in the slightest way, the Church and State, or both will fail. —L’Inconnue.